An experimenting society is one in which policy-relevant knowledge is created. It is then critically assessed and communicated in real-life or natural settings, with the aim of discovering new forms of public action to improve the problem-solving capacities of society. This latest volume of the distinguished Policy Studies Review Annual series probes, evaluates, and augments the work of Donald T. Campbell on an experimental societies. A basic assumption of this volume is that Campbell's perspective supplies a useful way to address (...) increasingly complex and seemingly unmanageable problems facing the United States and other postindustrial societies. This volume is also the fourteenth festschrift to be issued by Transaction. The focus is on theoretical as well as practical options for creating an experimenting society. The rationale for this focus is the belief, increasingly -shared in the social science and policy-making communities alike, that researchers are essentially ignorant about how to solve many of the most pressing larger problems of this epoch. This frank recognition of ignorance is a prerequisite of genuine scientific and professional curiosity, without which knowledge gains are next to impossible to achieve, and a'precondition of an experimenting society. Contributors to this original volume include: Steve-Fuller, Duncan MacRae, Jr., Anthony S. Bryk, Robert A. Beauregard, Rita Mae Kelly, Peter Gregware, Burkart Holzner, B. Guy Peters, C. West Churchman, and Ian I. Mitroff. Their multidisciplinary competencies are at once philosophical, methodological, and substantive. They address such questions as: What new or bold policies are available in domains such as education, science, and urban development? In what ways can theoretical knowledge and practical action be fused so as to illuminate or alleviate policy problems? What should be done? Included are excerpts from Campbell's foundational paper "The Experimenting Society," as well as a recent article entitled "Methods for the Experimenting Society," which circulated in unpublished form for many years. An unusual feature of the book is Campbell's responses to those who have addressed his work with candor and intelligence. It will be of interest to policy studies scholars, sociologists, and social scientists. (shrink)

Public policy analysis, a profession aimed at knowledge transfer, gives advice concerning public decisions. It can also recommend styles of reasoning, for citizens as well as analysts, to decrease the likelihood of misutilization of knowledge. These recommendations are more appropriate for an early stage of discourse reasoned proposal selection, than for the later stage of persuasion.

Berenicen statim ab urbe dimisit invitus invitam.As for Berenice, he immediately dismissed her from the city against his will, against her will. Suetonius' laconic description of Titus' dismissal of his consort, the Herodian Berenice, after his accession to the Principate has attracted the attention of readers across the centuries. The biographer's use of polyptoton, invitus invitam, to describe the mental states of the Roman princeps and Judaean princess has been read as particularly moving. Perhaps most notably, Racine turned the emperor's (...) banishment of his lover into the central dilemma of his tragedy Bérénice. At the start of his preface to the text of the play, the dramatist amalgamates this sentence with another from earlier in the chapter, retaining the striking repetition, ‘Titus reginam Berenicen cui etiam nuptias pollicitus ferebatur, statim ab Urbe dimisit invitus invitam’. Racine claims that this account of the dismissal of Berenice provides appropriate subject matter for tragic poetry and, to support his case, he compares Virgil's treatment of the separation of Aeneas and Dido to the situation of Titus and Berenice. Suetonius is not normally read as a literarily sophisticated writer, but we should take a cue from Racine's response to this sentence. In this article, I argue that Suetonius himself chose to compare Titus and Berenice with Dido and Aeneas by an allusion in this sentence to Virgil's Aeneid and to Catullus' translation of the Coma Berenices. Within a rather matter-of-fact presentation of the relationship between the Flavian emperor and his Herodian consort, Suetonius evoked a more dramatic model. (shrink)

Public policy analysis is a major link in the network of knowledge use. Without analysts’ intermediary role, research would be used less for policy choice and relatively more for predecision enlightenment. However, the knowledge use network may not give enough incentives for researchers to supply needed knowledge or for analysts to seek it. Though Washington, D.C., analysts can seek help from personal networks and from agencies such as the Congressional Research Service, those farther from Washington may use research less effectively. (...) Both groups may also fail to provide incentives for its production (i.e., to overcome academic researchers’ interests in promoting disciplinary theory over practical application). An efficient indexing system for policy-related research might serve as an incentive, if it could help producers of knowledge to be rewarded for its use. (shrink)

The thesis that gives the discourse its characteristic liberal twist is that of the possibility not just of arguing on values in principle but of effective communication about values between different social subjects, instead of, for example, mere compromise between opposing interests that are unable to understand each other's reasons or imposition of one interest on another. From this thesis derives the possibility of the proposal of combining "science" and "ethics".

During the past decades several philosophers of science and social scientists have been interested in the problems of causation. Recently attention has been given to probabilistic causation in dichotomous causal systems. The paper uses the basic features of probabilistic causation to argue that the causal modeling approaches developed by such researchers as Blalock (1964) and Duncan (1975) can provide, when an additional assumption is added, adequate qualitative measures of one variableś causal influence upon another. Finally, some of the difficulties (...) and issues involved in developing adequate quantitative measures are discussed, and it is concluded that the causal modeling measures cannot provide adequate quantitative measures. (shrink)

Support is canvassed for a novel solution to the sceptical problem regarding our knowledge of the external world. Key to this solution is the claim that what initially looks like a single problem is in fact two logically distinct problems. In particular, there are two putative sceptical paradoxes in play here, which each trade on distinctive epistemological theses. It is argued that the ideal solution to radical scepticism would thus be a biscopic proposal—viz., a two-pronged, integrated, undercutting treatment of both (...) putative sceptical paradoxes. A particular biscopic proposal is then explored which brings together two apparently opposing anti-sceptical theses: he Wittgensteinian account of the structure of rational evaluation and epistemological disjunctivism. It is argued that each proposal enables us to gain a purchase on one, but only one, aspect of the two-sided sceptical problem. Furthermore, it is argued that these proposals are not only compatible positions, but also mutually supporting and advanced in the same undercutting spirit. A potential cure is thus offered for epistemic angst. (shrink)

To be acquainted with something (in the philosophical sense of “acquainted” discussed here) is to be directly aware of it. The idea that we are acquainted with certain things we experience has been discussed throughout the history of Western Philosophy, but in the early 20th century it gained especially focused attention among analytic philosophers who drew their inspiration from Bertrand Russell's work on acquaintance. Since then, many philosophers—particularly those working on self‐knowledge or perception—have used the notion of acquaintance to explain (...) various facts about human experience and knowledge. In this paper, I offer an overview of this work, with particular focus on the resurgent literature on acquaintance in contemporary analytic philosophy. After more fully explaining what acquaintance is (or is supposed to be), I describe some reasons for thinking that we are indeed acquainted with certain things we experience, and then I survey some of the facts about experience and knowledge that acquaintance may help explain. (shrink)

In this paper, I do three things. First, I offer an overview of an anti- luck epistemology, as set out in my book, Epistemic Luck. Second, I attempt to meet some of the main criticisms that one might level against the key theses that I propose in this work. And finally, third, I sketch some of the ways in which the strategy of anti- luck epistemology can be developed in new directions.

In this article it is argued that the standard theoretical account of risk in the contemporary literature, which is cast along probabilistic lines, is flawed, in that it is unable to account for a particular kind of risk. In its place a modal account of risk is offered. Two applications of the modal account of risk are then explored. First, to epistemology, via the defence of an anti-risk condition on knowledge in place of the normal anti-luck condition. Second, to legal (...) theory, where it is shown that this account of risk can cast light on the debate regarding the extent to which a criminal justice system can countenance the possibility of wrongful convictions. (shrink)

Deep ethical interpretivism has been the standard view of the nature of sport in the philosophy of sport for the past seventeen years or so. On this account excellence assumes the role of the foundational, ethical goal that justice assumes in Ronald Dworkin’s interpretivist model of law. However, since excellence in sports is not an ethical value, and since it should not be regarded as an ultimate goal, the case for the traditional account fails. It should be replaced by the (...) shallow interpretivist model that I begin to sketch out and defend here. (shrink)

I can be aware of myself, and thereby come to know things about myself, in a variety of different ways. But is there some special way in which I—and only I—can learn about myself? Can I become aware of myself by introspecting? Do I somehow show up in my own conscious experiences? David Hume and most contemporary philosophers say no. They deny that the self shows up in experience. However, in this paper I appeal to research on schizophrenia—on thought insertion, (...) in particular—to argue that Hume and his follows are wrong: The self does, in fact, show up in experience. (shrink)

My main goal here is to develop a functional analysis of cheating and corruption in sports, and to differentiate cheating within the broader category of corruption. Whereas officials can act corruptly, they cannot cheat. In contrast, sports participants, since they occupy two roles, can do both. I argue that although acts of cheating are acts of corruption, not all corrupt acts by competitors are acts of cheating. I also respond to some skeptical challenges and criticisms of the concept of ‘cheating’ (...) by providing some opposing arguments and a provisional definition. I argue that cheating in sports occurs in the context of a complex institutional practice. It transpires due to some failing in the efforts and/or limitations of sports officials to prohibit it. In central cases it consists in both the functional and ethical violation of the constitutional norms of a sport in the service of obtaining unearned victory for the cheater. (shrink)

It is argued that the standard way that the criminal justice debate regarding the permissible extent of wrongful convictions is cast is fundamentally flawed. In particular, it is claimed that there is an inherent danger in focussing our attention in this debate on different ways of measuring the probabilistic likelihood of wrongful conviction and then evaluating whether these probabilities are unacceptably high. This is because such probabilistic measures are clumsy ways of capturing the level of risk involved, to the extent (...) that a defendant can be subject to an unacceptably high level of legal risk in this regard even where the relevant probabilities are very low. An alternative conception of legal risk – one that is primarily cast along modal rather than probabilistic lines – is set out which offers a much better way of framing the debate regarding what would be an acceptable level of wrongful conviction. It is further argued that with this modal conception of legal risk in play we can capture an important necessary condition that should be imposed on legal evidence, one that has application beyond the context of the criminal trial. (shrink)

The idea that truth is the fundamental epistemic good is explained and defended. It is argued that this proposal has been prematurely rejected on grounds that are both independently problematic and which also turn on an implausible way of understanding the proposal. A more compelling account of what it means for truth to be the fundamental epistemic good is then developed, one that treats the intellectual virtues, and thereby virtuous inquiry, as the primary theoretical notion.

ABSTRACTIn this article, I begin to develop and defend a reformed concept of ‘cheating’ as ‘wrongful competitive norm violating’. I then use this to reject Oliver Leaman’s view that cheating is som...

G. E. Moore famously offered a strikingly straightforward response to the radical sceptic which simply consisted of the claim that one could know, on the basis of one's knowledge that one has hands, that there exists an external world. In general, the Moorean response to scepticism maintains that we can know the denials of sceptical hypotheses on the basis of our knowledge of everyday propositions. In the recent literature two proposals have been put forward to try to accommodate, to varying (...) extents, this Moorean thesis. On the one hand, there are those who endorse an externalist version of contextualism, such as Keith DeRose, who have claimed that there must be some contexts in which Moore is right. More radically still, Ernest Sosa has expanded on this externalist thesis by arguing that, contra DeRose's contextualism, Moore may be right in all contexts. In this paper I evaluate these claims and argue that, suitably modified, one can resurrect the main elements of the Moorean anti-sceptical thesis. (shrink)

It is argued that standard accounts of the epistemology of religious commitmentfail to be properly sensitive to certain important features of the nature of religious conviction. Once one takes these features of religious conviction seriously, then it becomes clear that we are not to conceive of the epistemology of religious conviction along completely rational lines.But the moral to extract from this is not fideism, or even a more moderate proposal that casts the epistemic standing of basic religious beliefs along nonrational (...) lines. Rather, one needs to recognise that in an important sense religious convictions are not beliefs at all, but that this is compatible with the idea that many other religious commitments are beliefs. This picture of the nature of religious commitment is shown to fit snugly with the Wittgensteinian account of hinge commitments, such that all rational belief essentially presupposes certain basic arational hinge commitments, along lines originally suggested by John Henry Newman. We are thus able to marshal a parity-style argument in defence of religious commitment. Although religious belief presupposes basic arational religious convictions, it is not on this score epistemically amiss since all belief presupposes basic arational convictions, or hinge commitments. The resulting view of the epistemology of religious commitment is a position I call quasi-fideism. (shrink)

This paper examines the relationship between perceptual knowledge and discrimination in the light of the so-called ‘relevant alternatives’ intuition. It begins by outlining an intuitive relevant alternatives account of perceptual knowledge which incorporates the insight that there is a close connection between perceptual knowledge and the possession of relevant discriminatory abilities. It is argued, however, that in order to resolve certain problems that face this view, it is essential to recognise an important distinction between favouring and discriminating epistemic support that (...) is often overlooked in the literature. This distinction complicates the story regarding how an alternative becomes relevant, and in doing so weakens the connection between perceptual knowledge and discrimination. The theory that results, however—what I term a ‘two-tiered’ relevant alternatives theory of perceptual knowledge—accommodates many of our intuitions about perceptual knowledge and so avoids the revisionism of some recent proposals in the epistemological literature. (shrink)

Let us focus on what I take it is the paradigm case of testimony—the intentional transfer of a belief from one agent to another, whether in the usual way via a verbal assertion made by the one agent to the other, or by some other means, such as through a note.1 So, for example, John says to Mary that the house is on fire (or, if you like, ‘texts’ her this message on her phone), and Mary, upon hearing this, forms (...) the belief that the house is on fire and consequently exits the building at speed. Clearly, a great deal of our beliefs are gained via testimony, and if the epistemic status of our testimonybased beliefs were to be called into question en masse, then this would present us with quite a predicament. It is thus essential that we have some plausible account of the epistemology of testimony. Our primary focus will be on the justification for our testimony-based beliefs, though along the way we will say a little about other relevant epistemic notions like epistemic entitlement as well. (shrink)

In this article I develop my argument for a shallow interpretivist theory of sport by showing that whereas it applies to all oppositional sports, the standard theory of sport for the past twenty ye...

It is a platitude in epistemology to say that knowledge excludes luck. Indeed, if one can show that an epistemological theory allows ‘lucky’ knowledge, then that usually suffices to warrant one in straightforwardly rejecting the view. Even despite the prevalence of this intuition, however, very few commentators have explored what it means to say that knowledge is incompatible with luck. In particular, no commentator, so far as I am aware, has offered an account of what luck is and on this (...) basis identified what it means for a true belief to be non-lucky. It is just such a view that I propose, however, and I hope to give a flavour of what this strategy involves here. In particular, I have two goals in this paper. The first is to outline the general contours of the position and show how such a view can account for the attraction of adducing a safety condition on knowledge, with all the epistemic benefits that this principle holds. Relatedly, I will also explain how an anti-luck epistemology can assist us in determining the best formulation of this principle. The second goal of the paper is to show anti-luck epistemology in action by highlighting how such a view can deal with the various problems posed by lottery-style examples. (shrink)

The recent popularity of contextualist treatments of the key epistemic concepts has tended to obscure the differences that exist between the various kinds of contextualist theses on offer. The aim of this paper is to contribute towards rectifying this problem by exploring two of the main formulations of the contextualist position currently on offer in the literature—the 'semantic' contextualist thesis put forward by Keith DeRose and David Lewis, and the 'inferential' contextualist thesis advanced by Michael Williams. It is argued that (...) by evaluating these theses in the light of each other one can gain a deeper understanding of the contextualist position. In particular, it is argued that this relative evaluation highlights one interesting way in which contextualism might be developed. (shrink)

It is widely accepted that one strong motivation for adopting a conciliatory stance with regard to the epistemology of peer disagreement is that the non-conciliatory alternatives are incompatible with the demands of intellectual character, and incompatible with the virtue of intellectual humility in particular. It is argued that this is a mistake, at least once we properly understand what intellectual humility involves. Given some of the inherent problems facing conciliatory proposals, it is maintained that non-conciliatory approaches to epistemic peer disagreement (...) are thus on much stronger dialectical ground than many suppose, including some defenders of this line. In particular, non-conciliatory proposals can resist the idea that epistemic peer disagreement directly weakens one’s epistemic justification, as conciliatory views maintain. This means that the epistemic justification that our beliefs in this regard enjoy, and thus our knowledge, is more secure than conciliatory approaches to epistemic peer disagreement would suggest. (shrink)

Much of the recent debate regarding scepticism has focussed on a certain template sceptical argument and a rather restricted set of proposals concerning how one might deal with that argument. Throughout this debate the ‘Moorean’ response to scepticism is often cited as a paradigm example of how one should not respond to the sceptical argument, so conceived. As I argue in this paper, however, there are ways of resurrecting the Moorean response to the sceptic. In particular, I consider the prospects (...) for three such proposals in this regard: a classical epistemic internalist neo-Mooreanism, a classical epistemic externalist neo-Mooreanism, and a non-classical McDowellian epistemic internalist neo-Mooreanism, and maintain that the last two of these proposals (both of which make appeal to a disjunctivist account of perception, broadly conceived) merit further exploration. Indeed, I claim that a suitably qualified version of neo-Mooreanism would actually sit quite well with the general philosophical motivations behind other key anti-sceptical views and I argue that given this fact neo-Mooreanism is actually at a dialectical advantage relative to other views when it comes to dealing with the sceptical problem as it is typically conceived. (shrink)

(No abstract is available for this citation).

This paper defends Flatland—the view that there exist neither determination nor dependence relations, and that everything is therefore fundamental—from the objection from explanatory inefficacy. According to that objection, Flatland is unattractive because it is unable to explain either the appearance as of there being determination relations, or the appearance as of there being dependence relations. We show how the Flatlander can meet the first challenge by offering four strategies—reducing, eliminating, untangling and omnizing—which, jointly, explain the appearance as of there being (...) determination relations where no such relations obtain. Since, plausibly, dependence relations just are asymmetric determination relations, we argue that once we come mistakenly to believe that there exist determination relations, the existence of other asymmetries (conceptual and temporal) explains why it appears that there are dependence relations. (shrink)

Recent studies have shown that recidivism scoring algorithms like COMPAS have significant racial bias: Black defendants are roughly twice as likely as white defendants to be mistakenly classified as medium- or high-risk. This has led some to call for abolishing COMPAS. But many others have argued that algorithms should instead be given access to a defendant's race, which, perhaps counterintuitively, is likely to improve outcomes. This approach can involve either establishing race-sensitive risk thresholds, or distinct racial ‘tracks’. Is there a (...) moral difference between these two approaches? We first consider Deborah Hellman's view that the use of distinct racial tracks (but not distinct thresholds) does not constitute disparate treatment since the effects on individuals are indirect and does not rely on a racial generalization. We argue that this is mistaken: the use of different racial tracks seems both to have direct effects on and to rely on a racial generalization. We then offer an alternative understanding of the distinction between these two approaches—namely, that the use of different cut points is to the counterfactual comparative disadvantage, ex ante, of all white defendants, while the use of different racial tracks can in principle be to the advantage of all groups, though some defendants in both groups will fare worse. Does this mean that the use of cut points is impermissible? Ultimately, we argue, while there are reasons to be skeptical of the use of distinct cut points, it is an open question whether these reasons suffice to make a difference to their moral permissibility. (shrink)

In this article I return to an argument that I presented in earlier work to the effect that virtue epistemology is at worse false and at best unmotivated. In the light of recent responses to this argument from such figures as John Greco, Guy Axtell, and Kelly Becker, I here re-state and re-evaluate this argument. In the process the original argument is refined and supplemented in key respects and some of the main charges against it are shown to be unfounded. (...) Nevertheless, I also argue that at least one of the objections to the original argument—due to Becker—may well be on the right lines, and I draw some conclusions in this regard. (shrink)

This paper offers an articulation and defence of the modal account of legal risk in light of a range of objections that have been proposed against this view in the recent literature. It is argued that these objections all trade on a failure to distinguish between the modal nature of risk more generally, and the application of this modal account to particular decision-making contexts, such as legal contexts, where one must rely on a restricted body of information. It is argued (...) that once the modal account of legal risk is properly understood as involving information-relative judgements about the modal closeness of the target risk event, the objections to the view are neutralized. (shrink)

Most theists believe that they will survive death. Indeed, they believe that any given person will survive death and persist into an afterlife while remaining the very same person. In light of this belief, one might ask: how—or, in virtue of what—do people survive death? Perhaps the most natural way to answer this question is by appealing to some general account of personal identity through time. That way one can say that people persist through the time of their death in (...) the same way that people persist through time in general. Then the obvious question is: how—or, in virtue of what—do people persist through time in general? Many different answers to this question have been proposed. Some philosophers think that personal identity through time consists in something, such as psychological or biological continuity. They think that there are informative necessary and sufficient conditions—i.e., criteria—for personal identity through time. These philosophers are criterialists. Other philosophers are anti-criterialists. Anti-criterialists believe that people persist through time, but they deny that there are any informative criteria for personal identity through time. In this paper I develop a challenge to anti-criterialism. I begin by spelling out the commitments of anti-criterialism. Then I argue that there are good reasons for anyone to reject anti-criterialism. And then I argue that theists have special reasons to reject anti-criterialism (This is particularly important and noteworthy because a substantial portion of those who defend anti-criterialism are theists. Examples include [but may not be limited to] Trenton Merricks, Richard Swinburne, Joseph Butler, and Thomas Reid). I conclude that there is an informative criterion for personal identity through time and death, even if we haven’t heard of it yet. (shrink)

This advanced textbook, now in its second edition, provides an accessible overview of some of the main issues in contemporary epistemology. Written by an expert in the field, it covers such key topics as virtue epistemology, anti-luck epistemology, epistemological disjunctivism, epistemic value, understanding, radical scepticism, and contextualism. This book is ideal as a set text for an advanced undergraduate or postgraduate course in epistemology, and will also be of general interest to researchers in philosophy.

Postcolonial Liberalism presents a compelling account of the challenges to liberal political theory by claims to cultural and political autonomy and land rights made by indigenous peoples today. It also confronts the sensitive issue of how liberalism has been used to justify and legitimate colonialism. Ivison argues that there is a pressing need to re-shape liberal thought to become more receptive to indigenous aspirations and modes of being. What is distinctive about the book is the middle way it charts between (...) separatism, on the one hand, and assimilation, on the other. These two options present a false dichotomy as to what might constitute a genuinely postcolonial liberal society. In defending this ideal, the book addresses important recent debates over the nature of public reason, justice in multicultural and multinational societies, collective responsibility for the past, and clashes between individual and group rights. (shrink)

It is maintained that the arguments put forward by Bernard Williams and Thomas Nagel in their widely influential exchange on the problem of moral luck are marred by a failure to (i) present a coherent understanding of what is involved in the notion of luck, and (ii) adequately distinguish between the problem of moral luck and the analogue problem of epistemic luck, especially that version of the problem that is traditionally presented by the epistemological sceptic. It is further claimed that (...) once one offers a more developed notion of luck and disambiguates the problem of moral luck from the problem of epistemic luck (especially in its sceptical guise), neither of these papers is able to offer unambiguous grounds for thinking that there is a problem of moral luck. Indeed, it is shown that in so far as these papers succeed in making a prima facie case for the existence of epistemic luck, it is only the familiar sceptical variant of this problem that they identify. (shrink)

In the early years of the eighteenth century Leibniz had several interactions with John Toland. These included, from 1702 to 1704, discussions of materialism. Those discussions culminated with the consideration of Toland's 1704 Letters to Serena, where Toland argued that matter is necessarily active. In this paper I argue for two main theses about this exchange and its consequences for our wider understanding. The first is that, despite many claims that Toland was at the time of Letters to Serena a (...) Spinozist, we can make better sense of him as a sort of Hobbesian materialist. The second main point concerns reasons for materialism, and in particular a story Locke tells in the Essay about materialists' motives. Toland defends his materialism by arguing that matter is active, and argues that matter is active by using a conceivability argument. But this is not the crude conceivability argument that Locke suggests motivates materialists. This (together with reflecting on some of Hobbes's arguments) suggests that we might well tell a Lockean story about reasons for early modern materialism, but not Locke's story. (shrink)

The only constant in theological education is change, despite brave attempts to hold the tide back in some quarters. Yet, Western-based theological education remains the norm globally. The Faculty of Theology at the University of Pretoria exemplifies this norm despite its commitment to Africanisation. This article will consider transformation through the lens of the leadership of Prof. Johan Buitendag, who has led the transformation initiative from his own shared leadership perspective as dean since 2010. Change in the faculty will be (...) analysed through analysis of the faculty plans, with particular reference to teaching, learning and research. Consideration will be given to a more radical proposal for future transformation under the initiative of Africanisation. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe jus ad bellum criterion of right intention is a central guiding principle of just war theory. It asserts that a country’s resort to war is just only if that country resorts to war for the right reasons. However, there is significant confusion, and little consensus, about how to specify the CRI. We seek to clear up this confusion by evaluating several distinct ways of understanding the criterion. On one understanding, a state’s resort to war is just only if it (...) plans to adhere to the principles of just war while achieving its just cause. We argue that the first understanding makes the CRI superfluous, because it can be subsumed under the probability of success criterion. On a second understanding, a resort to war is just only if a state’s motives, which explain its resort to war, are of the right kind. We argue that this second understanding of the CRI makes it a significant further obstacle to justifying war. However, this second understanding faces a possible infinite regress problem, wh... (shrink)

Adam Carter has recently presented a novel puzzle about extended knowledge – i.e. knowledge that results from extended cognitive processes. He argues that allowing for this kind of knowledge on the face of it entails that there could be instances of knowledge that are simply ‘engineered’ into the subject. The problem is that such engineered knowledge does not look genuine given that it results from processes that bypass the cognitive agency of the subject. Carter’s solution is to argue that we (...) need to impose an additional autonomy condition on knowledge that excludes such cases of non-autonomous knowledge. In response, two points of criticism are offered. First, that when extended knowledge is properly understood, virtue-theoretic accounts of knowledge can already exclude non-autonomous knowledge without the need of an additional epistemic condition. Second, that the cases that Carter offers of putatively non-autonomous knowledge involve the inclusive folk notion of belief rather than the more restrictive notion of belief that is relevant to epistemology (K-apt belief). Once it is recognized that the belief condition on knowledge concerns this more restrictive notion, then we already have the means to exclude cases of non-autonomous knowledge (regardless of which theory of knowledge one favors). (shrink)